Year ending December 2021

The National Visitor Survey (NVS) results provide statistics on how Australian residents travel within Australia. You can find national, state and territory results for the:

  • number of trips taken
  • nights spent on a trip
  • amount spent on a trip.

You can also:

  • read about the factors influencing travel within Australia
  • see the changes compared over various timeframes impacted by COVID-19.

The summary results for 2021 are compared to 2019 pre-COVID periods. This is because 2020 results were a large deviation from pre-pandemic levels.


Annual snapshot


Overnight spend

Year ending December 2021 | $60.7 billion | Down 25%


Overnight trips

Year ending December 2021 | 82.1 million | Down 30%


Nights on trip

Year ending December 2021 | 321.1 million | Down 23%


Quarterly snapshot


Overnight spend

December quarter 2021 | $14.0 billion | Down 32%


Overnight trips

December quarter 2021 | 21.1 million | Down 28%


Nights on trip

December quarter 2021 | 74.8 million | Down 28%

Key results

Domestic trips and spend for year ending December 2021

For the year ending December 2021:

  • Domestic overnight trips fell 30% to 82.1 million.
  • Spend fell 25% or $19.9 billion to $60.7 billion.
  • Travel restrictions had a greater impact on interstate movement:
    • Interstate trips were down 57% to 16.6 million. Spend was down 50% to $22.7 billion.
    • Intrastate trips were down 17% to 65.5 million. Spend was up 7% to $38.0 billion.
  • Regional areas continued to fare slightly better than capital cities over the year:
    • Overnight trips to regional Australia were down 21% to 58.4 million. Spend was down 6% to $39.4 billion.
    • Capital city trips were down 45% to 26.9 million. Spend was down 45% to $21.4 billion.

Domestic trips and spend for December quarter 2021

For the December quarter 2021:

  • Border restrictions and lockdowns due to the Delta and Omicron outbreaks continued to impact domestic tourism in the December quarter 2021:
    • Domestic overnight trips fell 28% to 21.1 million.
    • Spend fell 32% or $6.4 billion to $14.0 billion.
  • High vaccination rates and the easing of restrictions led to improvements from the September quarter 2021. There was a 50% increase in spend and 78% increase in trips. This is in comparison to the pre-COVID 3-year average per cent change of:
    • -1% for spend
    • 6% for trips.

Total pandemic tourism losses

Domestic and international tourism losses have totalled $146.6 billion since the start of the pandemic. These losses include:

  • $56.2 billion for domestic overnight travel
  • $17.6 billion for domestic day trips
  • $72.8 billion for international travel.

Download the report

Explore overnight trips data

Interact with our data for domestic overnight trips for year ending December 2021. You can view the data by:

  • state or territory
  • capital city or region
  • interstate and intrastate trips
  • accommodation type
  • reason for travel.

Data tables

Read more

Contact TRA

mail   tourism.research@tra.gov.au